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Neural bases of Theory of Mind in children with autism spectrum disorders and children with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulty understanding other minds (Theory of Mind; ToM), with atypical processing evident at both behavioural and neural levels. Individuals with conduct problems and high levels of callous-unemotional (CU) traits (CP/HCU) exhibit reduced resp...

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Autores principales: O'Nions, Elizabeth, Sebastian, Catherine L, McCrory, Eamon, Chantiluke, Kaylita, Happé, Francesca, Viding, Essi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BlackWell Publishing Ltd 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4316185/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24636205
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12167
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author O'Nions, Elizabeth
Sebastian, Catherine L
McCrory, Eamon
Chantiluke, Kaylita
Happé, Francesca
Viding, Essi
author_facet O'Nions, Elizabeth
Sebastian, Catherine L
McCrory, Eamon
Chantiluke, Kaylita
Happé, Francesca
Viding, Essi
author_sort O'Nions, Elizabeth
collection PubMed
description Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulty understanding other minds (Theory of Mind; ToM), with atypical processing evident at both behavioural and neural levels. Individuals with conduct problems and high levels of callous-unemotional (CU) traits (CP/HCU) exhibit reduced responsiveness to others' emotions and difficulties interacting with others, but nonetheless perform normally in experimental tests of ToM. The present study aimed to examine the neural underpinnings of ToM in children (aged 10–16) with ASD (N = 16), CP/HCU (N = 16) and typically developing (TD) controls (N = 16) using a non-verbal cartoon vignette task. Whilst individuals with ASD were predicted to show reduced fMRI responses across regions involved in ToM processing, CP/HCU individuals were predicted to show no differences compared with TD controls. The analyses indicated that neural responses did not differ between TD and CP/HCU groups during ToM. TD and CP/HCU children exhibited significantly greater medial prefrontal cortex responses during ToM than did the ASD group. Within the ASD group, responses in medial prefrontal cortex and right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) correlated with symptom severity as measured by the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS). Findings suggest that although both ASD and CP/HCU are characterized by social difficulties, only children with ASD display atypical neural processing associated with ToM.
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spelling pubmed-43161852015-02-17 Neural bases of Theory of Mind in children with autism spectrum disorders and children with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits O'Nions, Elizabeth Sebastian, Catherine L McCrory, Eamon Chantiluke, Kaylita Happé, Francesca Viding, Essi Dev Sci Short Reports Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulty understanding other minds (Theory of Mind; ToM), with atypical processing evident at both behavioural and neural levels. Individuals with conduct problems and high levels of callous-unemotional (CU) traits (CP/HCU) exhibit reduced responsiveness to others' emotions and difficulties interacting with others, but nonetheless perform normally in experimental tests of ToM. The present study aimed to examine the neural underpinnings of ToM in children (aged 10–16) with ASD (N = 16), CP/HCU (N = 16) and typically developing (TD) controls (N = 16) using a non-verbal cartoon vignette task. Whilst individuals with ASD were predicted to show reduced fMRI responses across regions involved in ToM processing, CP/HCU individuals were predicted to show no differences compared with TD controls. The analyses indicated that neural responses did not differ between TD and CP/HCU groups during ToM. TD and CP/HCU children exhibited significantly greater medial prefrontal cortex responses during ToM than did the ASD group. Within the ASD group, responses in medial prefrontal cortex and right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) correlated with symptom severity as measured by the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS). Findings suggest that although both ASD and CP/HCU are characterized by social difficulties, only children with ASD display atypical neural processing associated with ToM. BlackWell Publishing Ltd 2014-09 2014-03-17 /pmc/articles/PMC4316185/ /pubmed/24636205 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12167 Text en © 2014 The Authors. Developmental Science Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Short Reports
O'Nions, Elizabeth
Sebastian, Catherine L
McCrory, Eamon
Chantiluke, Kaylita
Happé, Francesca
Viding, Essi
Neural bases of Theory of Mind in children with autism spectrum disorders and children with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits
title Neural bases of Theory of Mind in children with autism spectrum disorders and children with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits
title_full Neural bases of Theory of Mind in children with autism spectrum disorders and children with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits
title_fullStr Neural bases of Theory of Mind in children with autism spectrum disorders and children with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits
title_full_unstemmed Neural bases of Theory of Mind in children with autism spectrum disorders and children with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits
title_short Neural bases of Theory of Mind in children with autism spectrum disorders and children with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits
title_sort neural bases of theory of mind in children with autism spectrum disorders and children with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits
topic Short Reports
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4316185/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24636205
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12167
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